Timothy Ray Brown, first person cured of HIV, has died of cancer

Timothy Ray Brown (Photo: Facebook)

Timothy Ray Brown, the US gay man better known as “the Berlin Patient,” died yesterday of complications related to leukemia. Brown, 54, was believed to be the first person cured of HIV.

In 2007, Brown, who was HIV positive, received treatment for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). This involved doctors in Germany giving him two bone marrow transplants. He received new T-cells with a genetic variation that made them resistant to HIV. The treatment not only put his cancer into remission, but doctors were subsequently unable to find any trace of HIV in his body.

They concluded that he had been cured of his HIV.

Although the news was widely reported and welcomed when announced in 2008, bone marrow transplants are not a realistic treatment that can be rolled out on a commercial scale. They are extremely costly, grueling procedures that carry their own risks. Patients have to…

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